It isn’t often that you come across an app that instantly makes you create space for it on your dock. I’ve been using Launch Center for a while now and absolutely love it. When App Cubby announced their next app, Launch Center Pro, I was really excited. Launch Center accomplished about 70% of what it sought out to do and it looked quite nice. Launch Center Pro takes everything to another level.
When you launch the app, you are greeted with a nice grid of icons that can all be edited with some elegant graphics and nice subtle patterns. To the non power user, this app may seem like another homescreen or a replacement for a folder on your homescreen. Launch Center had a cell view of apps and actions while Launch Center Pro has a nice homescreen-esque layout of icons. It reminds me of the share view in iOS 6 that Scott Forstall showed us during the WWDC 2012 keynote. You can create groups or actions and actions within a group. Each action can have its own custom icon and the app gives you some nice stock icons with a few colour options. The button on the top right lets you edit the layout and when you’re editing the app background changes into a blueprint which is a really nice touch. The settings icon on the top left doesn’t actually have any settings and is quite misleading. It takes you to a beautifully designed about page with links to more apps by App Cubby and the support website. The different icon combinations possible are almost infinite here and I don’t think anyone using this app will not be pleased with the options.
While some apps let you launch other apps, this one lets you launch actions deep within other apps and that sets it apart. You can use the “groups” and create a speed dial for contacts or any app actions which is really useful for power users. The app uses the URL scheme other apps have to communicate with other apps. Launch Center Pro creates icons within the app for each of these URLs and presents them to you in an attractive manner. Calling a contact using this app is much easier than actually doing so with the stock phone app on the iPhone. You tap and hold the icon to call and slide your finger to a contact added as a favourite. This is much more intuitive than the normal way of doing it. It also let’s you add bookmarks and supports a load of 3rd party apps with URL schemes for deep actions. I can only imagine how much better this app will get with iOS 6 and the easier methods of inter app communication.
This app is for the true power user in the end and it is definitely a no brainer if you want to speed up the way you do things on your iPhone. While I have seen a few other apps try and do something like this, most of them fail because they are too slow. This app loads up almost instantly. A lot of power users probably already have Launch Center but I think this app deserves the pro label. Launch Center Pro will be a worthy addition to your iPhone dock and it is available on the App Store for $2.99 at 40% off as of this writing.